Chambre d’enfant avec salon : appropriation des espaces domestiques entre adultes et enfants

Abstract

Based on ongoing thesis research about shared domestic spaces for children and parents, this paper sheds light on certain aspects of the parent/child relationship to the child’s bedroom. It is based on the meeting of eleven families from different social classes located for the most part in urban areas, whose children are between 6 and 8 years old.Bedtime and sleep duration reveal both children’s and adults’ negotiations and forms of bedroom ownership. This involves physical contact, circulation, and the proximity of bodies to objects.Research reveals that, if the bedroom separates and individualizes, then the living room becomes important as a child’s space—meaning a space invested in and transformed by children, and sometimes by the parents, for children's activities.For the 6 to 8-year-olds we met, the bedroom is neither solely a space for oneself, nor a space where games and activities can be contained; rather, it appears to be a space seen in relation to specific moments and to other spaces in the home produced by children and adults.

Keywords

• child’s room
• family wellbeing
• conference
• child
• ethnography
• object